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Sonos targets living room with Playbar

SANTA BARBARA, California: The Playbar is the latest offering from Sonos, the company that makes those cool wireless speakers that stream Internet music and web stations like Pandora and Spotify off the PC

SANTA BARBARA, California: The Playbar is the latest offering from Sonos, the company that makes those cool wireless speakers that stream Internet music and web stations like Pandora and Spotify off the PC into the home.

Now Sonos is targeting the living room, and more specifically the TV set, to replace the woefully tinny sound coming from flat-panel TVs.

As TVs get thinner than ever, something's got to give -- and it's been the audio.

So clearly there's a need for improved audio for the TV. The twist with the Sonos Playbar is that not only does it improve the TV sound without having to drag wires all around the room, but it can also bring in streaming internet music.

I've been testing the Playbar and in every step of the way, it does the job it promises. Sound from the TV is suddenly full and robust. Movies and even more so, TV shows, have extraordinary audio. Streaming music is simple to access, and there's terrific integration with smartphones or tablets, which can be used as your remote.

The problem is the price: at $699, the Playbar is $300 more than I paid for the 42-inch 3-D LG flat panel in my living room, and $200 more than the 50-inch Panasonic plasma set in my bedroom.

TV prices have fallen so much, that deals for video abound -- not so for audio.

The sound bar is a relatively recent invention -- a way to stick audio sound into a solitary unit that connects directly to the TV, sans tons of wires. Prices start as low as $99 from Vizio (one speaker) to $199 for a two-speaker setup from Sony, and all the way up to $1,399 for a 9-speaker setup in one unit from Bose, plus a sub-woofer.

Sonos says it's competing with Bose, on the high end, and that it's unit (sans sub-woofer) is half-the price.

I haven't checked out the Bose unit, but can say that after a few days of using the Playbar, I wouldn't want to go back to tinny, audio sound from the HDTV.

Watching the ABC series Nashville, the guitars, bass and drums sounded like they were in the room with us. An episode of NBC's Rock Center news magazine was so clear, I heard anchor Brian Williams rusting the papers of his notes.

And for the various movies that I checked out on HBO, the creepy music from the horror movies gave me an even stronger signal that something really bad was about to happen.

The Playbar hopes to be a replacement for those six-speaker 5.1 surround stereo set-ups we've seen in home theaters over the year, the ones that separate the front, back and middle speakers. But to get there, you'll have to buy two additional Sonos speakers, which start at $299.

So, for $699, as much as I love the Playbar, I still couldn't justify forking over that kind of dough for improved audio. But here's hoping, as with the fine Sonos speaker system (I'm an owner) that prices eventually come to earth for the rest of us.